Increase in Devices Causing Bandwidth Trouble on Campus [Infographic]

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Between smartphones, tablets, notebooks and game consoles, college students are pushing bandwidth to the limits. Most colleges are making efforts to be Wi-Fi friendly, but the growth of web-enabled devices is moving too quickly. Most experts — and college students — agree that tablets will be eating up an increasing amount of data in the coming years:

Nine in 10 IT decision makers who responded to the ACUTA survey of 249 U.S. campuses said tablets were likely to consume the most bandwidth in coming years. This has prompted 19 percent of schools in the ACUTA survey to impose restrictions on the number of mobile devices a single student can connect to the campus’s network.

Twenty-seven percent of colleges and universities have bandwidth quotas, tracking the amount used by every student on campus – a practice that has sparked protests from college students who have fought fees imposed for exceeding individual bandwidth caps.

Bandwidth is an issue that could heat up in the next few years if the demand isn’t met. For most 18- to 22-year-old students, unlimited bandwidth is an expectation, and they will likely be driving IT departments to meet their needs.